A sober Edward Snowden says life in Russia ‘great’

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden unveiled the far reach of US government spy agencies. Now he's enjoying life in Russia. Photo: Reuters

Moscow: Edward Snowden would like everyone - especially his critics - to know that he is happy with life in Russia. Happy, and also sober.

"They talk about Russia like it's the worst place on earth. Russia's great," the former NSA contractor told journalist James Bamford during an interview in Moscow for the PBS program NOVA,which released a transcript of the conversation Thursday.

During the interview, Snowden focused on a speech that former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden had given in which he predicted that Snowden would depressed and drunk.

"It was funny because he was talking about how I was - everybody in Russia is miserable. Russia is a terrible place," Snowden recalled, hat-tipping Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman's coverage of the September 2013 speech. "And I'm going to end up miserable and I'm going to be a drunk and I'm never going to do anything."

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Hayden's exact prediction during that speech was that Snowden would "end up like most of the rest of the defectors who went to the old Soviet Union: isolated, bored, lonely, depressed - and most of them ended up alcoholics."

But even after two Russian winters, vodka's siren song apparently has no sway over Snowden.

"I don't drink. I've never been drunk in my life," Snowden said.

Snowden has been living in Moscow for more than a year, ever since the Russian government gave him asylum after the US government revoked his passport, leaving him stranded at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.

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A sober Edward Snowden says life in Russia 'great'